Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Home Birth

For baby #2, we are planning a home birth!

I just finished reading Maria Von Trapp's book, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, and was struck by what she said about having one of her babies in America. It so closely mirrors the way I feel about it:

"Oh, and time and again, Mrs. Dinker told me that one had to have a doctor and one had to go to a hospital to have a baby. I was finally persuaded to make one concession: the doctor. But go to a hospital -- that was ridiculous. Why? What for? I wasn't sick. In Europe you went to a hospital when you were dangerously sick, and many people died there, but babies were born at home. Would they in the hospital allow my husband to sit at my bedside? Could I hold his hand, look into his eyes? Could my family be in the next room, singing and praying? The answer to all these questions was "no."

All right, that settled it. I tried to explain that a baby had to be born into a home, received by loving hands, not into a hospital, surrounded by ghostly-looking doctors and masked nurses, into the atmosphere of sterilizers and antiseptics. That's why I would ask the doctor to come to our house."

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